Magpie Murders (7 page)

‘Well, there will be a decline, I’m afraid. These headaches of yours will get worse. You may experience seizures. I can send you some literature, which will give you the general picture, and I’ll prescribe some strong painkillers. You might like to consider some sort of residential care. There’s a very good place in Hampstead I can recommend, run by the Marie Curie Memorial Foundation. In the later stages, you will require constant attention.’

The words faded into the distance. Dr Benson examined his patient with a certain amount of puzzlement. The name Atticus Pünd was familiar to him, of course. He was often mentioned in the newspapers – a German refugee who had managed to survive the war after spending a year in one of Hitler’s concentration camps. At the time of his arrest he had been a policeman working in Berlin – or perhaps it was Vienna – and after arriving in England, he had set himself up as a private detective, helping the police on numerous occasions. He did not look like a detective. He was a small man, very neat, his hands folded in front of him. He was wearing a dark suit, a white shirt and a narrow, black tie. His shoes were polished. If he had not known otherwise, the doctor might have mistaken him for an accountant, the sort who would work for a family firm and who would be utterly reliable. And yet there was something else. Even before he had heard the news, the first time he had entered the surgery, Pünd had exhibited a strange sense of nervousness. His eyes, behind the round, wire-framed glasses, were endlessly watchful and he seemed to hesitate, every time, before he spoke. The strange thing was that he was more relaxed, now, after being told the news. It was as if he had always been expecting it and was merely grateful that, at last, it had been delivered.

‘Two or three months,’ Dr Benson concluded. ‘It could be longer, but after that I’m afraid you will find that your faculties will begin to worsen.’

‘Thank you very much, doctor. The treatment I have received from you has been exemplary. May I ask that any further correspondence should be addressed to me personally and marked “Private & Confidential”? I have a personal assistant and would not wish him to know of this quite yet.’

‘Of course.’

‘The business between us is concluded?’

‘I would like to see you again in a couple of weeks. We will have to make arrangements. I really think you should go and look at Hampstead.’

‘I will do that.’ Pünd got to his feet. Curiously, the action did not add a great deal to his overall height. Standing up, he seemed to be overpowered by the room with its dark wooden panels and high ceiling. ‘Thank you again, Dr Benson.’

He picked up his walking stick, which was made of rosewood with a solid, bronze handle, eighteenth century. It came from Salzburg and had been a gift from the German ambassador in London. On more than one occasion, it had proved to be a useful weapon. He walked past the receptionist and the doorman, nodding politely at each of them, and went out into the street. Once there, he stood in the bright sunlight, taking in the scene around him. He was not surprised to discover that his every sense had been heightened. The edges of the buildings seemed almost mathematically precise. He could differentiate the sound of every car as it merged into the general noise of the traffic. He felt the warmth of the sun against his skin. It occurred to him that he might well be in shock. Sixty-five years old and it was unlikely that he was going to be sixty-six. It would take some getting used to.

And yet, as he walked up Harley Street towards Regents Park, he was already putting it all into context. It was just another throw of the dice and, after all, his entire life had been lived against the odds. He knew well, for example, that he owed his very existence to an accident of history. When Otto 1, a Bavarian prince, had become King of Greece in 1832, a number of Greek students had chosen to emigrate to Germany. His great-grandfather had been one of them and fifty-eight years later, Atticus himself had been born to a German mother, a secretary working at the
Landespolizei
where his father was a uniformed officer. Half Greek, half German? It was a minority if ever there was one. And then, of course, there had been the rise of Nazism. The Pünds were not only Greek. They were Jewish. As the great game had continued, their chances of survival had diminished until only the most reckless gambler would have taken a punt on their coming through. Sure enough he had lost: his mother, his father, his brothers, his friends. Finally he had found himself in Belsen and his own life had been spared only by a very rare administrative error, a chance in a thousand. After the liberation, it had given him another full decade of life so could he really complain that a final throw had now gone against him? Atticus Pünd was nothing if not generous of spirit and by the time he had reached the Euston Road he was at peace with himself. All was as it should be. He would not complain.

He took a taxi home. He never used the tube train, disliking the presence of so many people in close proximity; so many dreams, fears, resentments jumbled together in the darkness. He found it overpowering. Black cabs were so much more stolid, cocooning him from the real world. There was little traffic in the middle of the day and he soon found himself in Charterhouse Square in Farringdon. The taxi pulled up outside Tanner Court, the very elegant block of flats where he lived. He paid the driver, added a generous tip, and went in.

He had bought the flat with the profits he had made from the Ludendorff Diamond affair
1
: two bedrooms, a light and spacious living room looking out onto the square and, most importantly, a hallway and an office where he was able to meet clients. As he took the lift to the seventh floor, he reflected that he had no cases to investigate at the moment. All in all, that was just as well.

1
See
Atticus Pünd Takes the Case

‘Hello, there!’ The voice came from the office before Pünd had even closed the front door and a moment later, James Fraser came bouncing out of the office, a bundle of letters in his hand. Blond-haired and in his late twenties, this was the assistant and private secretary that Pünd had mentioned to Dr Benson. A graduate out of Oxford University, a would-be actor, broke, and perennially unemployed, he had answered an advertisement in the
Spectator
thinking that he would stay in the job for a few months. Six years later, he was still there. ‘How did it go?’ he asked.

‘How did
what
go?’ Pünd asked in turn. Fraser of course had no idea where he’d been.

‘I don’t know. Whatever it was you went for.’ James smiled that school-boyish smile of his. ‘Anyway, Inspector Spence called from Scotland Yard. He wants you to give him a call. Someone from
The Times
wants you to do an interview. And don’t forget, you’ve got a client arriving here at half past twelve.’

‘A client?’

‘Yes.’ Fraser sifted through the letters he was holding. ‘Her name is Joy Sanderling. She rang yesterday.’

‘I do not recall speaking to a Joy Sanderling.’

‘You didn’t speak to her. I did. She was calling from Bath or somewhere. She sounded in a bit of a bad way.’

‘Why did you not ask me?’

‘Should I have?’ Fraser’s face fell. ‘I’m terribly sorry. We haven’t got anything on at the moment and I thought you’d appreciate a new case.’

Pünd sighed. He always looked a little pained and put upon – it was part of his general demeanour – but on this occasion, the timing could not have been worse. Even so, he did not raise his voice. As always, he was reasonable. ‘I’m sorry, James,’ he said. ‘I cannot see her right now.’

‘But she’s already on her way.’

‘Then you’ll have to tell her that she has wasted her time.’

Pünd walked past his secretary and into his private rooms. He closed the door behind him.

2

‘You said he would see me.’

‘I know. I’m awfully sorry. But he’s too busy today.’

‘But I took a day off work. I came on the train all the way from Bath. You can’t treat people this way.’

‘You’re absolutely right. But it wasn’t Mr Pünd’s fault. I didn’t look at his diary. If you like, I can pay back your train fare out of petty cash.’

‘It’s not just the train fare. It’s my whole life. I have to see him. I don’t know anyone else who can help.’

Pünd heard the voices from behind the double door that led into his sitting room. He was resting in an armchair, smoking the Sobranie cigarette – black with a gold tip – that he favoured. He had been thinking about his book, the work of a lifetime, already four hundred pages long and nowhere near complete. It had a title:
The Landscape of Criminal Investigation
. Fraser had typed up the most recent chapter and he drew it towards him.
Chapter Twenty-six: Interrogation and Interpretation
. He could not read it now. Pünd had thought it would take another year to complete the book. He no longer had that year.

The girl had a nice voice. She was young. He could also tell, even on the other side of a wooden barrier, that she was on the edge of tears. Pünd thought briefly about his illness. Intracranial neoplasm. The doctor had given him three months. Was he really going to spend that time sitting on his own like this, thinking about all the things he couldn’t do? Annoyed with himself, he neatly ground out the cigarette, got up and opened the door.

Joy Sanderling was standing in the corridor, talking to Fraser. She was a small girl, petite in every sense, with fair hair framing a very pretty face and childlike blue eyes. She had dressed smartly to come and see him. The pale raincoat with the sash tying it at the waist was unnecessary in this weather but it looked good on her and he suspected that she had chosen it because it made her seem businesslike. She looked past Fraser and saw him. ‘Mr Pünd?’

‘Yes.’ He nodded slowly.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you. I know how busy you are. But – please – if you could just give me five minutes of your time? It would mean so much.’

Five minutes. Although she could not know it, it meant so much to both of them.

‘Very well,’ he said. Behind her, James Fraser looked annoyed, as if he had somehow let the side down. But Pünd had made up his mind the moment he had heard her voice. She had sounded so lost. There had been enough sadness today.

He took her into the office, which was comfortable if a little austere. There was a desk and three chairs, an antique mirror, engravings in gold frames, all in the Biedermeier style of nineteenth-century Vienna. Fraser followed them in and took his place at the side of the room, sitting with his legs crossed and a notepad balanced on his knee. He didn’t really have to write anything down. Pünd, who never lost sight of a single detail, would remember every word that was said.

‘Please continue, Miss Sanderling.’

‘Oh, please, call me Joy,’ the girl replied. ‘Actually, my first name is Josie. But everyone calls me Joy.’

‘And you have come all this way from the city of Bath.’

‘I would have come a lot further to see you, Mr Pünd. I’ve read about you in the newspapers. They say you’re the best detective who ever lived, that there’s nothing you can’t do.’

Atticus Pünd blinked. Such flattery always made him a little uncomfortable. With a slightly twitchy movement, he adjusted his glasses and half-smiled. ‘That is very kind of you but, perhaps we are getting ahead of ourselves, Miss Sanderling. You must forgive me. We have been very rude. We have not offered you a coffee.’

‘I don’t want a coffee, thank you very much, and I don’t want to waste too much of your time. But I desperately need your help.’

‘Then why don’t you begin by telling us what it is that brings you here?’

‘Yes. Of course.’ She straightened herself in her chair. James Fraser waited with his pen poised. ‘I’ve already told you my name,’ she began. ‘I live in a place called Lower Westwood with my parents and my brother, Paul. Unfortunately, he was born with Down’s syndrome and he can’t look after himself but we’re very close. Actually, I love him to bits.’ She paused. ‘Our house is just outside Bath but I work in a village called Saxby-on-Avon. I have a job in the local surgery, helping Dr Redwing. She’s terribly nice, by the way. I’ve been with her for almost two years now and I’ve been very happy.’

Pünd nodded. He had already taken to this girl. He liked her confidence, the clarity with which she expressed herself.

‘A year ago, I met a boy,’ she went on. ‘He came in because he’d hurt himself quite badly in a car accident. He was mending the car and it almost fell on him. The jack hit his hand and broke a couple of bones. His name is Robert Blakiston. We hit it off pretty much straight away and I started going out with him. I’m very much in love with him. And now the two of us are engaged to be married.’

‘You have my congratulations.’

‘I wish it was as easy as that. Now I’m not sure that the wedding is going ahead at all.’ She produced a tissue and used it to dab at her eye but in a way that was more business-like than overly emotional. ‘Two weeks ago, his mother died. She was buried last weekend. Robert and I went to the funeral together and of course it was horrible. But what made it even worse was the way people looked at him … and since then, all the things they have been saying. The thing is, Mr Pünd, they all think he did it!’

‘You mean … that he killed her?’

‘Yes.’ It took her a few moments to compose herself. Then she continued. ‘Robert never had a very happy relationship with his mother. Her name was Mary and she worked as a housekeeper. There’s this big place – I suppose you’d say it was a manor house – called Pye Hall. It’s owned by a man called Sir Magnus Pye, and it’s been in his family for centuries. Anyway, she did the cooking, the cleaning, the shopping – all that sort of thing – and she lived in the Lodge House down at the gates. That was where Robert grew up.’

‘You do not mention a father.’

‘There is no father. He left them, during the war. It’s all very complicated and Robert never talks about it. You see, there was a family tragedy. There’s a big lake at Pye Hall and it’s said to be very deep. Robert had a younger brother called Tom and the two of them were swimming together in the lake. Robert was fourteen. Tom was twelve. Anyway, Tom got out of his depth and he drowned. Robert tried to save him but he couldn’t.’